Users of client devices in an enterprise environment have storage accounts whereby files or other content can be stored and synchronized between a client device and a remote storage area, such as on one or more servers that are accessible over a network connection. In some scenarios, a user may store files, such as audio or video files, that consume a large amount of storage space. For various reasons, the user may not wish to download the entirety of files in his or her storage account to the user's devices. For example, the user may have numerous video files stored in his or her storage account in the remote storage area but may not wish to also store all of the video files on a smartphone tablet, or other device that is synchronized with the remote storage area. Moreover, a user may only be interested in a portion of a file, such as a particular segment of a video, but traditionally would download the entire video and find the relevant portion.
Previous solutions to this problem have allowed a user to specify certain folders or directories from a remote storage area that he or she does not want to synchronize between a remote storage area and the user's device. However, files that are not stored on the user's device must then be retrieved or streamed from the remote storage area in their entireties.